Finance Minister hears need for “substantial” hike to highways budget
Manitoba’s trade transportation network is in need of “substantial” levels of investment, MHCA President and CEO Chris Lorenc stressed at a meeting with Finance Minister Cliff Cullen February 28.
“Manitoba’s provincial roads and highways are the arteries upon which we move goods to market and people to jobs, they need to be seamless, efficient and reliably connected,” Lorenc said. “If you can’t move it, you can’t sell it.”
Trade accounts for 53% of Manitoba’s (and 65% of Canada’s) GDP.
Lorenc met with Cullen and Deputy Minister Richard Groen, along with MHCA Board representatives Chair Dennis Cruise, immediate Past Chair Nicole Chabot and Board member Richard Wilson to discuss the highways capital program budget and challenges.
Among the challenges, they discussed the significant carry-over of unexpended amounts, year after year. In the last two years, highways capital under-expenditures carried over totaled about $120 million.
“Our industry needs predictability and that comes through an approach that commits to “budget-set/budget spent,” Lorenc said.
The discussion involved various means by which under-expenditures can be reduced, such as tendering the design of projects in a preceding year, and early tendering – well before the start of construction season – of the projects to the industry.
This allows for competitive pricing as contractors line up supplies and their HR needs early, but also for designed projects to be “shelf ready” in the event pricing comes in lower than budget estimates, allowing for additional tenders to be advertised.
The MHCA also stressed to Cullen the importance of Manitoba’s commitment to investing in trade gateways and corridors, as part of a cross-country effort to see a national strategy that prioritizes investments with the highest return to GDP jump-started with federal funding.
MHCA, through the Western Canadian Roadbuilders & Heavy Construction Association, is working with four national business associations in proposing a National Plan for Trade Corridor Infrastructure, with the goal of seeing it included in the federation Budget 2025.
